Greetings. Early this week I had to deal with jury duty here in L.A. -- after being bounced around preliminarily between three widely distant courts for months.

As you may know, I am, uh, not a fan of the jury system in this country. I believe it has morphed into a perverse monster, manipulated by politicians, judges, and lawyers until concepts like justice and accuracy are nowhere to be found.

It seems that nowadays we see an almost daily parade of persons being released after long incarcerations, when DNA or other evidence reveals that original juries had made incorrect decisions.

One primary reason that juries get it wrong is that the information being fed to them is so tightly controlled, and in many cases key facts are withheld -- frequently to juror members' dismay when they learn the truth after trials have completed.

As it turned out on Monday, nobody in the jury pool got called to any cases -- so it was merely a total waste of time for us all. But if I had been called onto a jury panel, I was anticipating the inevitable questioning where the court would attempt to confirm that I understand the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" -- at which time I planned to (try) mention the case of Charlie Lynch.

You may have heard about Charlie. A legal, licensed seller of medical marijuana here in California, he was convicted in federal court under federal law, as if he were a run of the mill drug dealer. The judge refused to even allow his lawyers to mention the nature of his medically-related, legal marijuana activities in this state.

While the Obama administration has suggested that they will likely no longer prosecute in future cases of this sort, it refused to intervene in Charlie's case.

Today he was sentenced to a year in federal prison -- apparently the minimum possible under federal law. But for Charlie, any prison time -- or penalties of any kind in this situation -- are an abomination, the kind of miscarriage of justice that primarily contributes to undermining faith in our criminal justice system.

Charlie should be receiving awards, not shackles.

It's probably lucky for me that I didn't get called onto a jury panel this time around. My plan to expound on such injustices in open court carried a nontrivial risk of upsetting the judge and leading to my own intersection with L.A. Superior Court shackles.

But it's important to speak out against abuses such as Charlie's conviction and sentencing.

Our country should expect no less from its citizens who care deeply about it. Remember, as unlikely as it may seem from where you're sitting right now, one day you might find yourself in a courtroom learning the hard way what "railroaded" really means.

--Lauren--